And after this, too . . . ?

The Gaza Soup Kitchen chef Mahmoud Almadhoun killed by a targeted Israeli drone strike, November 30, 2024

"Writing Poetry After the Holocaust Is Barbaric — and Essential"—Menachem Rosensaft, Jewish Telegraphic Agency*

"Leopards break into the temple and drink to the dregs what is in the sacrificial pitchers; this is repeated over and over again; finally . . . it becomes part of the ceremony."—Kafka, "Leopards in the Temple"

After Auschwitz, Adorno said,

To write a poem is barbaric.†

I'm not the only one to think him

wrong.

"We need poems, songs and parables. We need a Kafkaesque, morbid language of dreams and nightmares to be able to penetrate the nocturnal universe of Auschwitz and Birkenau, of Treblinka, Majdanek and Bergen-Belsen, of Belzec, Chelmno, Sobibor and Terezin, of the Warsaw Ghetto, Transnistria and Babyn Yar."*

So I'll continue. After Gaza.

Barbaric though it be.

"Chef Mahmoud did nothing but save lives. He had no defence of camouflage, not even a rifle. His only weapon was the ladle in his hand – and that weapon saved thousands."‡

* Menachem Rosensaft, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, https://www.jta.org/2021/04/05/ny/writing-poetry-after-the-holocaust-is-barbaric-and-essential.

† Theodor Adorno said in 1949 that writing poetry after Auschwitz was barbaric — “nach Auschwitz ein Gedicht zu schreiben, ist barbarisch.”

‡ Nahed Elrayes, development manager, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) USA, "Are We Your Perfect Victims Now?" https://aje.io/sfbqlz.